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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
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make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
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or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
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liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W four CY
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Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments
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should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for
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choosing W FOURCY Radio.
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Welcome to Powerful Business Strategies, where you will find out
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that everything you have ever learned about growing your business
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is wrong. Finally, a show where you'll learn the right
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way to grow your business by learning business and financial
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strategies that your competition isn't doing. And now here is
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your host. President of NeXTSTEP CFO Michael Barbarita, and joining
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Michael for today's show as an executive moderator is Chooky Obio.
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The Welcome to Powerful Business Strategies and the reason why
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you don't hear that energize more energized voice of Chucky
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Obio welcoming you to the show is because Chucky's wife
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and Chukey recently welcomed their first baby, Chelsea. A Day's
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a oh Bio to the world. So congratulations to Chukey
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and his wife. And Chukey will be on leave for
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a little while so in the meantime, Monument is Michael
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bober Rita, President of Next Step CFO and next Step
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CFO is a fractional CFO and strategic implementation firm. Business
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owners hire us the double and triple their profit through
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implementing business and financial strategies that their competition isn't doing.
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Our vision is to ensure that overwhelmed business owners achieve
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the time, freedom, and consistent profits that build a legacy
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and the life that they desire. Our mission is dedicated
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to guiding small business owners to leveraging their time, exploding
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their profits, and building a meaningful legacy. The show Powerful
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Business Strategies and our book of the same name is
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a step toward accomplishing that vision and mission, and Chucky
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and I are both affiliated with a number of different organizations.
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Jukie currently serves as the managing director for business development
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for Better Price, a global business focused law firm. In
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addition to that, Chucky and I collaborate to moderate business
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round cables around the country and around the world and
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document those insights as part of our book Powerful Business Strategies.
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But please note that the views expressed on this show
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are our personal views based on our own successful experiences.
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So here's something that i'd like to share that I
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announced before actually announced it the last few weeks. And
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if you have a business problem that you would like
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us to answer, or a question or a strategy that
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you'd like to ask us about, please email us at
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ask at NEXTSTEPCFO dot net. Now it doesn't matter what
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the business problem is or what the question is, will
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answer it for you. But there's a couple of things
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that we asked. Number one, please state whether it is
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something we can answer on the air or if it's confidential.
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Of course, if it's confidential, we won't put it on
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the air. Number two, please provide your phone number because
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business problems can be complex and we might need more
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context or clarity to your question. That email address again
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is ask at NeXTSTEP CFO dot net. That's ask at
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nextstepsfo dot net. I also want to point that we've
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had a couple of people requesting asking questions, but they
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all requested confidentiality, which of course, we will always honor you. Know,
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in my years of working with business owners, I've noticed
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something remarkable that the most successful ones share a common trait.
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They're eternal students. They never stop learning, they never stop growing,
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and they never stop saying I know enough. So think
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about this. Every major breakthrough in your business journey probably
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came from learning something new, a new strategy, a new perspective,
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a new way of thinking. And those moments when you
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say aha, now I see it differently, those are the
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moments that change your business now. I remember working with
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a business owner who was ready to give up. He'd
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been doing things the same way for fifteen years. His
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business was just stagged it. His enthusiasm was gone. But
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then he made a crucial decision. He decided to become
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a student again. He started reading, attending workshops, seeking out
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new perspectives, talking with me more. Within six months, his
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business was growing again, but more importantly, his passion had returned.
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Here's what I want you to understand that the most
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dangerous words in business aren't I failed there, I know enough.
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The moment you stop learning is the moment your business
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starts dying. Every business is evolving, every market is changing.
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And every day brings new opportunities to those who are
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ready to see them. But here's the beautiful thing. You
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don't have to make dramatic changes to keep learning, not
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small little tweaks. Read one article a day about your industry,
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Listen to one podcast on your commute, have one conversation
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a week with someone who thinks differently than you do.
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These small investments in yourself they compound over time, just
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like interest in a bank account. Remember, your business can
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only grow as much as you do. Every minute you
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spend learning is an investment in your company's future. The
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challenges are facing today can be solved with knowledge that
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you don't have yet. So stay curious, stay hungry, and
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stay hungry for knowledge, and never st being a student
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of your craft. So every business owner knows the feeling
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you know. You're looking at your profit and loss statement seeing,
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maybe seeing some healthy revenue numbers, but wondering why there
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isn't more profit to show for all your hard work.
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You're not alone. I've helped hundreds of business owners transform
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their revenue into real bottom line profit, and I can
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tell you this. The gap between your current profits and
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your potential isn't about working harder. It's about working smarter,
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and today I'm going to show you exactly how to
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turn more of every dollar that you learn into profit
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that you can actually keep, because it's not about not
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just about making money or generating revenue, it's about keeping
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the money that you make. So today we're going to
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take into a deep dive into something that every business
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owner needs to understand, the profit growth formula, turning every
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dollar of revenue into maximum bottom line impact. You know,
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I recently worked with a business owner who was doing
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about three million dollars in annual revenue but only keeping
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about one hundred and fifty thousand improfit. And he was frustrated,
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and he was exhausted, and he couldn't figure out why
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he was working so hard for such a small return.
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Sound familiar. Well, within six months of implementing what I'm
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about to share with you today, or some of the
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things that I'm about to share with you today, his
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profit increased a four hundred fifty thousand without increasing his
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revenue by a single dollar. Today, I'm going to show
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you exactly how he did it, and more importantly, how
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you can do it too. Oh. I got a question
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from Melissa, said he asked Michael, why do you think
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so many businesses struggle with profit even when they have
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good revenue. Well, it's what I call revenue hypnosis. Business
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owners get hypnotized by top line growth and lose sight
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of what really matters, which is by them nonprofit, and
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they're so focused on making the sale they forget to
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make sure they're keeping enough of what they earn. So
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let me give you a quick example. I worked with
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a construction company that was celebrating celebrating landing a five
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hundred thousand dollars contract, their biggest ever. It's great, but
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when we analyze the numbers, we discovered that they would
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actually lose money on the job because they were focused
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on the revenue side and they forgot about focusing on profit.
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So today we're going to break down three major areas
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where profit hides in plain sight. One is strategic pricing,
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the other is operational leverage, and the third is profit
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leak prevention. More importantly, I'm going to show you exactly
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how to capture that profit without having to work harder
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or taking on more stress, which is something I know
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we business owners always take on. And the best part,
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these strategies don't require that you get more customers or
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increase your sales. They simply require you to be smarter
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about the money that you already are making, and by
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the end of the today's show, you'll have a clear
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roadmap for turning more of your revenue into actual profit.
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Another question, can any business implement these strategies? Well? Absolutely,
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I've used these exact strategies with retailers, manufacturing, service businesses,
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contractor you name it, and the principles work across any
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industry because they're based on fundamental business math, not specific
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industry tactics. So let me share something. In my experience
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working with hundreds of businesses, I found that most companies
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are leaving between thirty percent and fifty percent of their
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potential profit on the table, not because they're doing anything wrong,
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because they're not looking in the right places for profit opportunity.
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So think about it. If you're making one hundred thousand profit,
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you might have another thirty to fifty thousand available by
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implementing these strategies. And that's without getting a single new
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customer or working a single extra hour. So let me
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dive into the first major area of profit growth that
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I talked about, strategic pricing most businesses approach pricing completely backwards.
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They look at their costs at a markup and hope
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it's enough. That's not pricing. That's not a pricing strategy.
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That's called pricing surrender. So let me share a story
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that illuminates this. A commercial landscaping company that was pricing
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their services based on what they thought the market would bear,
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and they were getting plenty of business, but their profit
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modules would raise it thin and then how they're making
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any money? And when they analyzed their pricing, they discovered
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that they had categorized all this services into three tiers
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basic basic services, premium services, and deluxe services. But when
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they looked at actual profit margins, some of their basic
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services were more profitable than their deluxe ones, and they
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were literally pushing customers put less profitable services. And so
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they implemented what they called profit first pricing. So instead
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of starting with costs, they started with target gross profit margins.
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They analyzed every service that they offered based on three factors,
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the actual cost of delivered, the value it provided, the
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value it provided to the customer, and the operational complexity involved. Now,
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this analysis revealed that their snow removal service, which they
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saw as a basic offering actually provided enormous value to
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their commercial clients. Why, because snow removal was critical for
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liability and business continuity. They reposition this service and increased
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prices by forty percent, but not a single customer complained
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because the value was obvious. This is what business owners
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are constantly afraid of. They're constantly afraid that, you know,
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they're gonna they're gonna lose business to a competitor when
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they increase their prices. But if you if you increase
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your prices strategically, like in this particular example with the
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landscaping company, that is when a customers hardly noticed, and
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especially if you add more value to your product the
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service that has very little cost to it, and so
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just adding a little things, like when I was in
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the frozen cookie dough business, I added a free convection
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of it with every opening order, and I knew the
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value of a customer, so I knew that once my
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customer tried the product, I knew I could expect probably
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five to ten thousand dollars in additional orders because that's
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what I was averaging, and so it was easy to
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give away a two hundred dollars convection of and with
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a fifty dollars opening order. Didn't make money on the
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opening order, but I made money over the long term
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with the long term valueable customer. And you always should
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know your long term value of a customer. So back
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to that landscaping landscaping company, what they also discovered is
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that some of their premium services like Intricate landscape design
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were actually eating into their profits because of the time
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and revisions involved. Instead of dropping these services, they restructured them.
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They created a clear scope of work that included two
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revisions with additional revisions at an extra charge. And the
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result was their overall gross profit manage and increased from
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eight percent to twenty three percent within four months. And
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here's the key. They didn't lose any customers. They just
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started charging appropriately for the value that they were delivering.
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For the value, that's the key word, for the value
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that they were delivering. You increase the value of your
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product or service, you could demand more money. So let
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me share another powerful pricing strategy. I call it the
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value based packaging. And most businesses give away valuable add
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ons because they're afraid to charge for them. But when
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you package your services, products or services strategically, customers actually
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prefer to pay for the complete solution. So there's an
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example of an IT service provider that I worked with
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who was including after hours support in all their contracts
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because they thought they had to compete on service. Well,
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we analyzed their support support logs and found that only
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twenty percent of their clients regularly used after hours support,
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but they were essentially giving it a way to everyone.
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We structured their pricing into three tiers, Standard, which was
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eight am to five pm, support, Premium which is seven
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am to seven pm, and Enterprise, which is twenty four
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to seven And so here's what happened. Sixty percent of
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their clients chose Premium that was seven am to seven pm,
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fifteen percent shows enterprise, and twenty five percent stayed with standard.
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Their average contract value increased by thirty four percent, and
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their gross margins approved by forty five percent. Here's another
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question from a listener. But so the question is, well,
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what about businesses that are in highly competitive markets. Won't
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raising prices drive away those customers? Well, this is I
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just kind of just went through that. But this is
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where most businesses get it wrong. They think they're in
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a price sensitive market, But what they're actually in is
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a value communication market, a value communication problem. So let